John Doerr: Venture Capitalist Pushes Green Technology
For using his influence to tackle the climate crisis, he is one of America's Best Leaders
In 2007, venture capitalist John Doerr gave a speech to a group of entrepreneurs in which he recounted a dinner conversation with his family and a group of friends. The topic was global warming. His teenage daughter, he recalled, turned to him angrily and said, "Your generation created this problem. You've got to fix it." Doerr was stunned. "All the conversation stopped," he said. "All the eyes turned to me. I didn't know what to say."
Over the past three decades, Doerr, 58, has become one of the country's most successful—and legendary—venture capitalists, amassing a personal wealth of $1.2 billion while playing a critical role in funding the public launch of Amazon, Netscape, and Google, among many others.
But Doerr, citing his daughter and his research and travels as a businessman, is now putting his considerable influence to work on the climate crisis. He has pushed Kleiner Perkins, his Silicon Valley firm, into the clean energy industry by launching a $500 million Green Growth Fund to support new technologies, with plans to invest more than $1.1 billion in the future. Clean energy, he has said, is the "largest economic opportunity of the 21st century."
In February, Doerr was tapped by the Obama administration for its Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and now he is calling on the administration and Congress to be much more aggressive in addressing climate issues. He has consistently called for a cap on carbon emissions and greatly increased funding for research. The biggest obstacle, he has argued, is not too much government but rather the lack of a clear signal for the market that the government actually cares about green energy.
Reader Comments
interesting perspective
it seems he is not trying to save the climate, but to use political muscle to boost his own prospective profits in his "green" companies. if his green technologies are worthwhile, why does he need to push for a carbon cap scenario to be successful?
low cost funding required for Green initiative
Dear Sir,
I am Srinivasan, Proprietor of M/s. Trans Solar Technologies. We are involved in trading of Renewable Energy Products like Solar Water Heater, Solar Photvoltaics etc. We are interested in getting finance either for us or for our customers directly from you as the case may be.
Basically we sell the services to our client. For example We have installed the largest solar water heater system of Delhi at Holy Family Hospital. The cost of the entire system was Rs 18 lacs. The client did not pay any amount for this equipment. The client has made an agreement with us and he will pay us Rs 51,000/- every month for a period of 7 years for using the equipment. At the end of seven years the client has the option to buy the equipment @Rs 50,000/- or terminate the contract after 7 years and we take back the equipment and sell it at what ever cost we can get in the second hand market and dispose it off.
The client has given us a bank guarantee for the entire capital cost of Rs 18 lacs for a period of 5 years as a security to us. In case the client defaults on the payment then we can encash the bank guarantee as per the agreement .
Now we have got the equipment financed by a financer for a period of 5 years and we are paying our installment from the revenue we get from the client.
I have many other clients on similar circumstances where the margins are very attractive as compared to selling the equipment out right. I need to know if your company can finance such deals in North India against 100% bank guarantee.The size of each deal will be in the region of 10 lacs to 50 lacs but there will be atleast 15 -20 cases in a year. We may more than this but not less than this.
In case you can not finance me then I can get the Bank Guarantee directly in the name of the financer so that he pays the rental directly to you or to us and we pay it to you. We are flexible in all kind of deals.
Regards
S.Srinivasan
Ph- 09810817592
www.transsolartechnologies.com
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